Author: janyananda

The spiritual aspirant (sadhak) and the spiritual community (satsangha) are intimately bound with one another. Indeed, the false opposition between the individual and the collective must be questioned, as all reality, temporal and eternal, manifests from Shiva-Shakti. There is no “inside” or “outside” for the satsangha, as all beings are on a pilgrimage to their home in God. These principles stem from an intuitive understanding that all things, living and non-living, human and animal, exist at the pleasure of the unseen divine love. The divine play (leela) alone makes the illusion (maya) of separation appear. The vision of love increases when initiates and non-initiates alike follow these precepts:

Examine past faults in a light and unattached manner, seeking to purify flaws and bring positive actions to bear on the future.

Act with strength of purpose, holding an unfaltering mental attitude.

Serve at the feet of the deities (puja, homa) and engage in continual prayer, both mantra recitation and spontaneous conversation with the devas.

Give to those who have less, either materially or spiritually, making the satsangha strong through mutual cooperation and respect.

Seek to complete every action with lovingkindness, regarding no task as trivial.

Always look for new opportunities to serve the community, bringing ideas into action.

Make teachings available for those with little or no previous background, lending support where necessary.

Look for service projects that will improve the natural environment and the lives of non-human creatures, laying the foundations for an improved relationship with the Earth.

Put aside all doubt, taking refuge in the satsangha and dedicating life to service.

These principles, when followed daily, will rapidly accelerate the spiritual growth of individuals while simultaneously making the society vibrant. They should be reviewed regularly as a spiritual exercise, with each precept adapted to local needs and conditions.

A few pictures can’t really capture the feelings of goodwill and harmony that embraced the gathering of 9500 people, representing all major faith traditions from around the world, who gathered in Salt Lake City, October 15-19, 2015. The attendees were devotees, philosophers, activists, scholars, and performers of every background, united around the common theme of “Reclaiming the Heart of Our Humanity.” Not an unkind word was uttered among these delegates from supposedly antagonistic traditions, who discussed ways to address the major issues confronting humanity in the twenty-first century, especially women’s rights, global poverty, climate change, and war and terrorism.

Shree Maa has given us a new sankalpa for Ashwin Navaratri. It is a Mahishasura Mardini stotram by Shri Adi Shankara. We will be striving for 1008 repetitions as a group during Navaratri, in addition to Chandi worship. Sign up on the Shree Maa website if you can formally participate. The Mandir will be live streaming as well throughout Navaratri. Janyananda will be traveling to Utah for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. If you should happen to be going or live nearby, his talk is called “Sanatana Dharma and Earth Liberation: A Goddess-Based Path to a Sustainable Future,” and it will be in Room 355F at 2:00 p.m. Janyananda will be talking about Sita, the scene from Ramayana in the Ashoka grove, the moments of grief before Hanuman arrives to comfort her. This will begin a discussion of the destruction of earth and the grief for what is happening to our planet. He will also be meeting Hindu leaders and other religious leaders from around the world and will be seeking advice and blessings for the Society. May all of you have a wonderful Navaratri, and may the divine Mother in all of her forms bless you immensely!

If you were a teenager in America in the 1980s or 1990s, and if you belonged to the punk or indie subcultures, chances are you or a friend had a zine (short for magazine, appropriate for a small magazine) that you made with a typewriter and old school cut-and-paste techniques. Blogs have largely replaced zines, but there are still a lot of good ones out there. My favorites from the nineties were Cometbus and Pants That Don’t Fit. Shout-outs also go to Fizgig, Henry Fanclub Maga, The B.O.A. Constrictor, and Window Copy. Cometbus, which always had great writing and artwork, is still around and has expanded into Microcosm Publishing. I don’t know what happened to Pants That Don’t Fit, but someone drop me a line if you know anything. Zines render that down-to-earth feeling that, yes, I too have have something to say, and no, I will not be hindered by the lack of an advertising budget. Zines were ahead of the curve on LGBTQ issues and feminism, they reviewed bands from small and nonexistent labels, and they gave expression to idiosyncratic, first person points of view. Reading a zine was like sitting down for a cup of coffee with a friend. They were, and are, traded on a person-to-person basis or sold in independent bookstores and record shops.

In the best of that tradition, I offer you The Sacred Thread, a dharma punk zine for the 2010s. The zine will be distributed on a very limited basis in physical form, via mail and at a few shops in Augusta, GA and Aiken, SC. Or you can download it here. In this first issue:

EAT: GREENS AND BLACK-EYED PEAS

CONFESSIONS OF A MIDDLE-AGED SKATEBOARDER

KALI PRANAM MANTRA

NON-ADVERTISEMENTS FROM AWESOME PEOPLE WE SUPPORT

This was a whole lotta fun to make, and there will hopefully be new issues quarterly, for starters. Here are two versions that you can download. First, for the hardcore dharma activist, who can make copies, fold, and distribute:

For those of you who can come to the Southeastern United States, we will be holding a wonderful Kuchipudi dance event at the University of South Carolina, Aiken on November 20th, from 3-5 p.m. The event is free, but there are opportunities for sponsorship/donation. See the flier below for details.

Sabrina MisirHiralall recommended Krishna Dass’ autobiography, Chants of a Lifetime, a wonderfully positive and uplifting book about the celebrated kirtan singer’s journey from jaded Western young person to lifetime devotee. Like Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now and many other teachings, Krishna Das is a disciple of Sri Neem Karoli Baba, viewed by his followers as an incarnation of Lord Hanuman. I can relate to Ram Das and Krishna Das when they speak about their beloved guruji: I often had the feeling when listening to Swamiji’s talks that he also had the energy of Sri Hanuman. There was just something about the intensity of his voice and his untiring nature that made me think of the monkey god. And my tradition, too, is steeped in devotional songs, drawn from Shree Maa’s Bengali tradition. I often think about how Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna would go into ecstasy just from hearing a kirtan singer in the precincts of Dakshineshwar.

Krishna Das, in recounting his journey from what often sounds like self-loathing to contemplative release, recommended another book called Radical Acceptance, by psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach. I found Brach’s book to be a welcome break from the flood of new age literature that recommends a sort of bootstrapping approach to self-improvement. She leads the reader through a series of exercises in which, rather than trying to escape from our flaws, we simply look at them, as they are, without judgement. This is a difficult discipline that is so much more kind to the ego self than the usual advice to just muscle through our shortcomings to a supposedly better state of being. Buddhists and Hindus agree that the ego self is essentially fictitious and illusory, but that doesn’t mean we should run roughshod over it. If we further shame the inner child, we may just make the situation worse. Brach offers a gentle path out of the trap that is close to the Buddha’s original teachings.

To just speak in a casual and off-the-cuff sort of way, we usually have in mind some sort of Ideal Life for ourselves, whether that Ideal is working as a stockbroker on Wall Street or meditating in a cave somewhere. So far so good: we probably need some sort of goal in order to get out of bed in the morning. But then it gets more pernicious. We compare the life that we want to the life that we have now and perceive a massive gap between the real and the Ideal. This gap or lack is so disturbing that we immediately set about trying to rectify it through mental and emotional gymnastics. Blame and anger come into the picture. If I am not living as I think I Should, there must be someone to blame.

The blame and anger can be directed inwardly or outwardly. We can blame our parents, our children, our life partners, God, or the government. This is a great trick because it gets us off the hook, but it comes at a tremendous price. We walk around feeling disgruntled all the time, swearing and muttering under our breath at the slightest provocation. So peace goes out the door right away, and it is even worse if we direct the blame inward, at ourselves. This is where self-hatred comes into play, leading to depression and even suicide if it goes unchecked. All of this is so painful that there is likely to be some self-medication along the way. This is likely some form of addiction, ranging from mild and socially acceptable to severe and socially censured.

But maybe the real tragedy lies in missing the beauty and joy right in front of our faces. We are so busy blaming and hating and medicating that we lose sight of the present moment, those little flickers of divine brilliance in everyday life. We lose the ability to actually pay attention. We buy into our own propaganda so much that we don’t actually make very much contact with reality. Our filters, our sh*t-tinted glasses (pardon the expression–I can’t think of a better one) get so convincing and habitual that we can’t take them off. We mistake our self-written scripts for reality itself, and that becomes a very difficult cycle to break.

So this is why we foolish people who still believe in the spiritual life practice sadhana. We want to see the world as it is rather than believing in the very convincing (and very depressing) alternate realities that we have constructed for ourselves. But the old Ego is very wily and can play the spiritual game as well, manipulating most any tradition into blame and anger. So we must be very alert and pay attention very closely to the game being played between our ears. The Hindu tradition views that game as a war between the demons and the devas. Think about the Bhagavad Gita or the Chandi Path. These are basically texts that teach us how to quell those ugly voices, those dark thoughts. They are such simple texts in some ways, and yet they are the work of a lifetime. We have to keep learning their lessons over and over again.

So I suppose it’s okay to have a goal in life and it is okay to fall short of that goal. We must let the matter drop there and not crank up the blame engine. We must have a moderate amount of ambition in life in order to function as human beings, but we must not let our shortcomings gnaw at us. That was one of Ramakrishna’s only criticisms of the Christian tradition, that he felt it led people to concentrate on sin, sin, sin rather than the inner divinity. Perhaps if we are more gracious with ourselves and with each other, we can find a less tortured way to liberation.

Some Christian groups have taken yoga asanas and attached Bible verses to them. Rather than a traditional murthi, there might be a cross at the front of the studio. Certainly this is an appropriation of Hinduism, but is it offensive? Should Hindus fight against these appropriations or simply “live and let live”? In this article, which was published on the Hindu Human Rights website, Janyananda explores the phenomenon of Christian yoga and asks about its implications for the future of dharma. Feel free to share to social media and get a conversation going. Universal love and compassion does not mean that we should not discuss controversial topics. Honest and open debate is the only way that we can move society forward.

The new patches have arrived and are available for members, new and old! The patch features the anahata mandala with its seed sound. The year, 1633, refers to the trial of Galileo by the Catholic Church. It reminds us to protect the life of the mind, including empirical science, even as we pursue our spiritual quests. The year, 2012, refers to the founding of the society. Shree Maa and Swamiji gave their blessing to the Society on April 27, 2012 from Delhi, so the organization is about to have its third birthday! The three dots after each letter of the initials are a convention in esoteric societies. In our case, they refer to the nine gates of spiritual progress and the nine gates of the body, among many other meanings. The somewhat Americanized spelling of “satsanga” refers to Sri Ramakrishna’s prophecy that he would live in the subtle body of his devotees for three hundred years, and that he would have many devotees in the West.

The patch is an outward sign of an inner transformation, that one commits oneself to the mission of the Society. We affirm that the life of the mind must be balanced with the intuitions of the heart, that the masculine and feminine forces must find union, and that human society should find its proper place within the rest of nature. We believe that all people, no matter what race or ethnicity, no matter what economic status or background, sexual orientation or gender, have access to the divine within the shrine of the heart. We take the tradition handed down to us and propagate the teachings to the next generation of seekers from all walks of life, bringing the Sanatana Dharma one step closer to the crack of the ages at the dawn of Satya yuga, the Age of Truth.

To claim your patch, please contact David or Sabrina. They are offered free of charge: donations for postage are welcome. Put the patch on a hoodie, on your yoga bag, on a prayer shawl, or wherever you like. Let it remind you to uphold the values of the Society and to also remember the other members in your devotions. Jaya vijaya bhava!

Jyotish or astrology forms a part of traditional Hindu practice. Whether you consult your astrological chart just for entertainment, to find auspicious days, or to find guidance in life, you will need a birth chart first. The easiest way to obtain a birth chart is to send your birth data to a professional jyotish kovid. You will need the place, date, and time of birth, correct down to the minute if possible. If you don’t have complete information, just do the best you can. Your jyotish advisor should provide you with a complete reading and interpretation for a nominal fee.

Supposing that you are willing to undertake some work and study, you can download free software on the internet and interpret your own chart. To begin, you will need to read some books on the subject. The following are highly recommended:

The Behari and Frawley books both provide a good overall introduction to Jyotish, and they agree on the main points. It can be useful to consult both when wanting a more in-depth explanation of a particular planetary influence. The Nakshatras or lunar mansions described by Harness are most often used in marital charts, but they can also be a good guide to understanding your personality. You could view the Nakshatras almost like a separate system to the Navagraha (the nine main planets of jyotish).

Okay, supposing you have done some background reading and are ready to go, you need the actual chart, which is best done by computer. I recommend the Jagannatha Hora program, available here. The program works best on PCs, but some people have had luck with Windows simulators on Macs. After installing it, open the program and click File/New. Then click this icon, which stands for edit birth data:

Then you’ll get a pop-up dialogue box that looks like this:

Use the boxes and drop-down menus to enter your birth data (Gregorian). The built-in atlas does not have every town and city in the world, but it will have a nearby city. If you know the latitude and longitude, you can enter that information as an alternative. After entering this information, hit ‘OK,’ and your birth chart will appear. This will be the upper left-hand chart that says, ‘Rasi,’ under the ‘Basics’ tab. As a beginner, you will not have to worry about the other divisional charts that appear along with it. By focusing only on the Rasi chart, you will not be intimidated by the wealth of features that Jagannatha Hora offers.

I will use my chart as an example in what follows. Each jyotish kovid will have a differing interpretation, but there are certain constants. First, the Ascendant house is regarded as the most important, followed by the sun sign, followed by the lunar sign. This is in contrast to Western astrology, in which the Sun sign is considered the most important. The Ascendant is conveniently labeled for you in the program. Take a look:

The ‘As’ stands for the birth ascendant, the constellation on the horizon at the time of birth, in this case Aquarius, which will henceforth be treated as the first house, which governs the soul and self-understanding. From there, we count inclusively, and the Sun house ends up being the eighth house, Virgo, which is the Vedic Sun sign. This will normally be close to the Western astrological sign, perhaps a house away or sometimes aligning. The eighth house governs occult wisdom as well as sex: it is a house of tantra more generally. The moon sign in this case is the fifth house (here Gemini), which governs creativity and the soul. The ascendant acts almost like its own planet, and is the most important, followed by the Sun and Moon.

The birth ascendant is Aquarius, associated in the West with the Age of Aquarius or New Age, with connotations of self-sacrifice and commitment in Vedic astrology. Note also the strong Saturn (Shani) in the sixth house, which produces nervous disorders like anxiety and epilepsy. The Mercury in house eight is a Mercury bhadra yoga (Mercury in its own house), indicating skill in communication and other Mercury-based qualities. Note also the craziness in house nine, with Venus, Mars, and Rahu coming closely together. This indicates a strong interest, perhaps obsession, with religion, philosophy, and ethics. Jupiter is weakened (indicated by parentheses) by Mercury from five houses away (succedent or panapara position). All of this makes perfect sense to me (as it is my chart!) and probably to those who know me the best. It is a bit odd to put my information out here like this, but it is also more revealing than a fake example.

One can easily dismiss all of this as superstitious nonsense, but I think the chart can be a powerful tool for meditation and self-understanding. It shows one’s strong and weak points and gives a total life picture. In addition to the chart, one needs to know the primary associations with each house, planet, and sign, along with a few rules for combinations. These can easily be obtained by a close reading of the above books and a lot of practice. The result will be a picture of the self that is at least as valid as any inventory taken by a psychologist. Interpreting one’s own chart for oneself is a great exercise in contemplation and will have an impact on how one chooses to use the planetary energies.

Free will should absolutely be emphasized, as past and present karma will affect how the planetary energies affect us. The blessings of gods and gurus also trump the nine planets, as many scriptures insist. It is also important to get oneself in the right frame of mind before attempting a reading. At the very least, one should do some silent meditation and mantra practice before beginning to get rid of the mental noise that could skew the results. That’s all for now. Future posts will provide quick and easy methods for jyotish that anyone can understand.